yes, and it could be made in a pluggable form similar to the SFP. The waveguides and the antenna are "one and done" for a building, can be put behind walls, 40-80 year lifetime, etc. The part that is changing and gets deprecated every few years by large amounts of invested NRE is the Wi-Fi chips themselves. The thing that fails are lasers or optics (that's part of the reason optics are pluggable in data centers.) So incorporating Wi-Fi analog & digital and the optics (and optics DSP, if needed) on the same pluggable, low power, part is a very good form factor. The upgrade cycle is about every 2 years, for those that want the newer 802.11 features as that standard continues to evolve.

Also, if pacing/ECN actually works at scale then the Wi-Fi chip is further simplified, doing L4S marking. The packet stuff can be done in a Fi-Wi concentrator that is 802.3 frame aware or at the host CCAs and the Wi-Fi chip need worry about packets (which are an artifact.)  Just be a very good pacer that marks in a way that Wi-Fi receives 802.11 transmits for a local optimum, e.g. correlated with the MAC access (EDCA) and the aggregation and the MCS and possibly bulk vs interactive.

Bob

On Mon, Jul 29, 2024 at 5:03 AM Rich Brown via Make-wifi-fast <make-wifi-fast@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:


On Jul 28, 2024, at 12:00 PM, make-wifi-fast-request@lists.bufferbloat.net wrote:

Here, the solutions need to be in full transistors
(and very low power and very secure.) ... Wi-Fi doesn't need to be
managed by a complex workstation and 30+ years of software bloat.

If I understand the argument, it's that we should have a pared-down Wi-Fi chip that does exactly one thing, and does it well. It should implement all the best practices (TXQs, ATF, AQL, etc.) to make it (more) secure, deliver the best performance (speed & latency). 

The fact that the algorithms are permanently welded into the silicon doesn't really matter: in practice, "no one ever updates their Wi-Fi drivers" in the bazillions of off-the-shelf routers on the market. They might as well have a good implementation.

Do I have that right? Thanks.

Rich
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